Intel unveils its most powerful CPU yet: 18-core i9-7980XE

Intel announced its most powerful CPU yet, an enormous 18-core, 36-thread Core i9-7980XE that will launch on September 25 for $2,000.

The new chip will join the 16C/32T i9-7960X priced at $1,700 and the 14C/28T i9-7940X available for $1,400. The 12C/12T i9-7920X chip launches on August 28 for $1,200. While U.K. prices still have yet to be confirmed, it is likely that the top-end chip will start at £1,900, with the others going down from there.

Intel also released TDPs (thermal design power) and boost clock speeds, the data that was missing from the original X299 statement in May. The Core i9-7980XE has a 2.6-GHz base clock, a Turbo Boost 2.0 clock of 4.2 GHz, and a Turbo Boost 3.0 clock (up to two cores) of 4.4 GHz. It’s accompanied by 24.75 MB of L3 cache, 44 PCIe lanes, and a 165-W TDP (the 10-core i9-7900K has a 140-W TDP).

Boost and turbo clock speeds for the other i9 chips are primarily the same with a slight 100-MHz variance, except the i9-7940X boasts a higher 3.1-GHz base clock. Additionally, in the i9-7980XE chip, clock speeds vary from 4.2 GHz to 3.9 GHz up to 12 cores and drop to 3.4 GHz when all 18 cores are active.

The i9-7980XE has to compete with both the AMD’s mainstream Ryzen CPUs as well as the upcoming launch of the Threadripper, which offers 16C/32T for $1,000 — a more cost-efficient product over Intel’s chips. Threadripper features 64 PCIe lanes across the board without the limitations that Intel has on the lower-end X299 chips. Threadripper also offers powerful cooling due to the use of solder rather than thermal material underneath the heat spreader.

We’ll have to wait to see how they perform in comparison to one another.

Source: Ars Technica